Roots Of Reynolds Fortune

July 09, 1989|BY LOIS SPRATLEY BOOK REVIEWER

Although most of us would be willing to give it a whirl, being Really Rich can be an emotionally wrenching experience. Those who inherit great wealth are often physically pampered, but their mental health seems up for grabs unless they have (a) wise, loving parents who are married (preferably to each other) (b) great strength of character, or (c) a deep religious conviction and/or dedication to a selfless cause.

Like his father before him, Patrick Reynolds, an heir to Reynolds tobacco fortune, came up short on "a" and "b." Nevertheless, he is currently working on "c" in the form of a well-publicized anti-smoking campaign.

While probably necessary, the first half of this book involving the founding of the family fortune is a turgid tale. The post-Civil War Reynolds brothers especially the competitive R. J. (Richard Joshua) and Abram, may have been hot-shot entrepreneurs but, at least in this rendition, they have pretty tedious personalities. But when Patrick's father, the half-hero, half-villain star of this family history, arrives on stage, things perk up considerably.

If anyone could have survived the "curse" of great inherited wealth, it should have been R. J., Jr., a.k.a. "Dick." Born in 1906, the eldest of R. J. Sr.'s four children, he was better looking than his syblings and certainly more intelligent than his dim-bulb brother Smith. Smith spent his time - and money - in good ol' boy fashion: drinking, raising hell and flying his own plane (the latter being his one distinction).

He also celebrated his escape from a disastrous early "shotgun" marriage by immediately leaping into another matrimonial frying pan. By the time they married, Libby Holman, a bisexual torch singer, was at the peak of her career. But on July 5, 1932, during a drunken party at Reynolda, the Reynolds magnificent Winston-Salem estate (now open to the public) a shot rang out. Twenty-year-old Smith Reynolds lay mortally wounded.

Who had pulled the trigger? The pregnant Holman and Smith's pal, Ab Walker, were indicted for murder. Eventually, however, after the lavish spreading around of soothing Reynolds money a less sensational verdict of suicide was reached. (Patrick's personal assessment: "assisted" suicide.)

With his worth estimated between $25 million and $30 million, Dick Reynolds took longer but was just as effective in accomplishing his own self-de struction. Along the way there were some good moments: he financed three airlines, was mayor of Winston-Salem and a bigwig Democrat under FDR and Truman. (Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, we now know this was pretty quid pro quo stuff involving political favors and special treatment by the IRS.)

Chain-smoking and drinking like a fish, he also waded through four messy marriages (Patrick's mother, wife No. 2, was a voluptuous, no-better-than-she should-be Hollywood starlet) and fathered seven untidily raised children.

Furthermore, Dick had a taste for the bizarre. In a scene straight out of Chekhov, he buried 100 pound bags of gold around his island retreat Sapelo. (Sapelo is now owned by the state of Georgia.) He later dug them all up and took them with him and wife No. 4 to Switzerland, where, after disinheriting his first six children, he died under "mysterious" circumstancecs in 1964. (The mystery to me is how he managed to last 58 years.)

Considering his obvious anger over neglect, being cut out of "real" money (he is forced to get by with several million from his grandparents trusts) Pa trick Reynolds is remarkably objective while conducting this search-for-self-through-finding-father.

Perhaps because it is so painful, he refers to himself, Caesar-style, in the third person: "When he'd attended Hotchkiss . . . he was plagued with feelings of alienation," etc.

He cruised through the drug counter-culture of the '60s, had bit parts in movies, an affair with Shelley Duvall, a short-lived marriage. He seemed, in short, well on the way to being another rich Reynolds playboy. But, with this book and his anti-smoking crusade, he has the chance to both grow up and get even.

Not to be flip, it must be absolutely devastating to feel, as he does, unwanted, to be used by a mother as a bargaining chip for more alimony, to be totally ignored by a father.